School’s Out – Now What? Engaging Kids’ Minds Without Losing Yours This Summer BY LISA A. BEACH
With the academic clock winding down for the school year, you’re now faced with several months of potentially lazy summer days stretching before your tweens, teens and home-for-the-summer college kids. This poses several sticky situations for parents: Should you let your kids sleep in or wake them up? Should you make them “be productive” or let them just chill out? Should you have the same expectations for tweens, teens and home-for-the-summer college kids?
$1.00 KIDS MOVIES
Let’s Start with Sleep
Take a break from the Summer heat and join WAYNESBORO THEATRE for some cool fun at the movies.
Waynesboro Theatre will feature family-friendly movies at 12:30pm on select Thursdays throughout the Summer. Movie titles, dates and times are subject to change.
JUNE 8
The LEGO Movie (PG)
JUNE 15
The Tale of Despereaux (G)
JUNE 22
Shrek (PG)
JUNE 29
ParaNorman (PG)
JULY 6
Mr. Peabody and Sherman (PG)
JULY 13
Iron Giant (PG)
JULY 20
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (PG)
JULY 27
The Secret Life of Pets (PG)
AUGUST 3
The Angry Birds Movie (PG)
AUGUST 10
The Boxtrolls (PG)
AUGUST 17
Storks (PG)
AUGUST 24
Happy Feet (PG)
According to the National Sleep Foundation, schoolage kids (6-13) need 9-11 hours of sleep each night and teens need 8-10 hours of sleep. Ideally, you want your kids to get into a consistent sleep routine, going to bed and waking up about the same time every day. But, since they’re probably staying up later on summer nights, their normal routines are off-kilter. Even though it might rattle parents to watch summer mornings slip away while teens snooze until noon (or later), should parents let them sleep in a bit? “It’s best for teens to have a consistent sleep schedule during the summer,” according to Lisa J. Meltzer, Ph.D., CBSM, Associate Professor of Pediatrics at National Jewish Health and a National Sleep Foundation Education Scholar. “For many teens, that will mean staying up late and sleeping in late. However, some teens have a summer job or summer school that may prevent them from sleeping in too late.” So what’s a sleepy teen to do? Meltzer advises keeping to a consistent sleep schedule as much as possible. For example, if teens need to wake by 8:00 a.m.on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, then on the other days they should sleep no later than 9:00 a.m.
Strike a Balance
Once you and your kids agree to a reasonable wake time in the summer, then what? Before your kids start binge-watching movies on Netflix, set up some ground rules on the expectations you’ve got for their free time. Whether you put a limit on screen time or adopt a “work-first, play-later” mentality (to ensure they take care of their responsibilities), make sure everyone’s on the same page about how summer will play out. Once everyone agrees on the need to strike a balance between chilling out and staying engaged this summer, what can you do to help your kids find this balance--and keep yourself sane in the process?
Middle School Kids
As parents, you can help bridge the gap between the end of one school year and the beginning of the next
Page 4
July/August 2017
Child Guide
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